Monday, 24 December 2012

Amazonas 1600 - Beetle Powered Brazilian Behemoth

It's Christmas Eve, and for today's post I present you with a massive turkey. Happy Holidays!

A wisened old git by the name of Dave, who
was a passionate lifelong motorcyclist and successful vintage racer, once told me
“There are no bad motorcycles. Just some that are better than others”. I’m
quite certain old Dave never swung a leg over the 900-pound Beetle-powered
behemoth from Brazil known as the Amazonas 1600, considered one of the best
worst motorcycles in modern history.

Seeing pictures of the Amazonas you can
scarcely believe this monstrosity is a functional, mass-produced motorcycle
that can be ridden by mere mortals. It looks horrifyingly huge and under
developed, even at a glance. Seeing a proportionately-tiny rider perched atop it makes it look even more ridiculous. It looks like the bastard child of a Honda Gold
Wing and a Boss Hoss, held together with the sort of shade-tree engineering and
blind hope that would make Cletus think twice about putting his beer down and
taking it around the block. It is hideous, overwrought, baroque, and utterly
intimidating for all the wrong reasons. And that’s before you’ve even swung a
leg over the damned thing.

And yet the Amazonas is a series production
bike, with a loyal following and a reputation for staggering reliability and
durability. It was the ride of choice for Brazilian police, the target
demographic, to replace their ageing fleet of Harley-Davidsons. It was the
product of ingenuity and backyard tinkering in a time of hardship, and it
survived its humble beginnings to become an icon in South America.

The Amazonas was the product of a very
specific set of circumstances present in Brazil in the late 1970s. A failing
economy and heavy-handed protectionist policies meant that imported products
were taxed into oblivion, which effectively precluded the import of motorcycles
– and the parts to maintain them. This policy of import substitution
industrialization was intended to bolster local production by forcing national
production and was in place up until the 1990s – and consistently made Brazil a
technological backwater.

As a result of the ISI measures the
Brazilian police force maintained a fleet of antiquated Harleys that were fast
becoming unserviceable, and without a home-grown motorcycle manufacturer there
was no chance of the motorcades receiving anything up to date.

Sao Paolo based tinkerer Daniel Rodriguez
saw the gap and decided he would design and build a motorcycle to suit the
needs of the police force. It would have to be rugged, reliable, easy to
maintain, and built with existing parts – parts that were produced in Brazil to
avoid the problem of import duties. As Volkswagen had been manufacturing the
Beetle in Brazil since the 1950s, it made sense to use VW parts… In Rodriguez's
mind, anyway. He set about building a hulking touring machine around the
cockroach-tough air-cooled 1600cc Type 1 VW motor and transmission, and in 1977
the mighty Amazonas was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

The motor was standard Beetle fare, right
off the Brazilian production line – an air-cooled flat four displacing 1584cc
via an 85.5x69mm bore/stroke. Compression was a lowly 7.2:1, and your valves
were opened by pushrods. Nothing exotic to be found here. On standard models a
single Ford Escort carburettor was mounted inboard and split between the two
cylinder banks. On the, um, “sporty” superEsporte you got a pair of
carburettors in the wind. Neither version offered much in the way of power; 50
ish horsepower for the basic 1600. Supposedly some models were available with
the poverty-spec 1300cc engine wheezing out 38hp. On the plus side you got a
decent amount of torque, around 75 lb/ft for the 1600. Or it would have been a
decent amount, had the brute not weighed a gnat’s ass under 900 lbs with a full
tank of gas.

Everything on the Amazonas was the product
of meagre resources. The disk brakes were taken off a Ford car, while a VW master
cylinder was modified to operate from the handlebars. The stock VW four-speed
transmission was retained, complete with a functional reverse gear (turns out
it was needed considering the heft of the thing). The final drive was crudely
adapted to a chain by welding the differential gears and driving a sprocket off one
of the half shafts. The suspension was designed by Rodriguez and was wholly
incapable of the task demanded of it. The frame was a crude duplex tube design
that ignored the possibility of using the boat-anchor engine as a stressed
member. The various bits are pieces were cobbled together from odd sources and
finished with rough-looking trim and bodywork. It may have been ugly, but at
least it was crude.

Despite the rough quality of the finished
product, the Amazonas was accepted and became the Brazilian police mount of
choice during the 1980s – not that they had much choice. Incredibly, despite
the backyard manufacturing, the Amazonas proved to be a remarkably resilient
machine. Duty bikes racked up impressive mileage with minimal maintenance. And
if anything did go wrong, any backwater mechanic who could distinguish his ass
from a Crescent wrench could fix the simple Veedub mill with a hammer and a
rubber band.

If one were so inclined there was a
multitude of go-fast goodies available to hop up the Beetle motor and make a
hot-rod Amazonas that could potentially get out of its own way. In fact Cycle
World built a 2275cc monster motor for their test bike in 1985 and managed to
knock the quarter mile time from 17.96 down to 13.28 seconds (with a second
gear start due to transmission problems) – but only after they had dumped 2000$
into the engine and tripled the horsepower.

In Brazil, the Amazonas was the only game
in town and developed a cult following. In the mid-80s, at the height of
production, four main models were available – the basic eSporte, the sporty-er
superEsporte, the bagger’ed up Turismo, and the government-issue Policial.
Prices in 1984 were from $4000 USD and up.

Outside of the country, the odd brute was a
curiosity. It was often derided as the ugliest motorcycle in the world, and
probably one of the worst to ride. Cycle World reviewed the 1600 and their
polite restraint is palpable on the page. It’s clear that the Amazonas was
utterly horrific to ride. Slow, heavy, under braked, clunky controls,
square-tyred, and with a non-existant “suspension”, it was a disaster to ride
for anyone familiar with modern motorbikes. Reviews convey a curious
fascination with how crude and unusual it was compared to… Everything. Once you
looked past the charm of a cobbled together, tough as Twinkies, Beetle-powered
cruiser it was clear that the Amazonas was quite terrible in every conceivable
metric.

And yet production soldiered on and the
Amazonas gained a loyal following from bike-hungry Brazilians who had little to
choose from in their tightly restrained market. About one quarter of production
was dedicated to service bikes, the remainder sold to the public. There were
even a few examples exported to other countries, though never enough to
challenge Ural’s dominance of the comically terrible export motorcycle market.
Not that it was particularly cheap – in 1988, one of the final years of
production, the 1600 was a pretty substantial $8500 USD.

In the early 90s the original 1600 was
getting a bit long in the tooth (actually, it was stone cold dead in the market) and a more “modern” replacement was needed. Or at least someone out there believe a modernized Amazonas was needed and set about building it.
The slightly-less abominable but virtually unknown 1600 Kahena was the result.
Outside of a few promo images and some used bike listings in Brazil, details
about the Kahena are virtually non-existent. From what I can gather the it was
introduced between 1990-92 and featured a twin-spar frame, dubbed “Tecbox” in
ugly script right across the beams, and a new swingarm design. It produced by a
new company by the name of TECPAMA in Sao Paolo - the original Amazonas works
had closed in 1989. The bodywork was modernized (complete with the requisite
swoopy RADICAL neon graphics that were standard issue on all early 90s
machines) and the component quality appeared much improved over the original
models. You got better brakes, real motorcycle tires, modern controls, and
shaft drive. The engine was still the venerable and execrable VW 1600, now with
64 hp and a whoppin’ 7.5:1 compression ratio, and despite the trappings of
modernity the Kahena was still massive, oddly proportioned, and quite ugly –
except now it looked like a morbidly obese superbike, instead of a Harley with downs syndrome. On the plus side, weight
was trimmed to a positively svelte 675 lbs dry.

All told about 450 Amazonas 1600s were
produced, along with an unknown number of Kahenas (if anyone in Latin America
has some insight into the Kahena please share it in the comments). The bike
remains a curiosity to those of us outside Brazil, but up until recently it
still had a loyal cult following and a dedicated owner’s club. Globe-trotting
motorcycle adventurer Greg Frazier toured across Brazil on an Amazonas 1600 in 2000 and offered these anecdotes about the experience on his travelogue:

I was also introduced to the Amazonas Moto
Clube and shown how truly "in love" the members are with the Amazonas
Motorcycle. One former owner of an Amazonas nearly cried when I told him if I
had a choice I'd rather be riding an Amazonas than a Harley-Davidson. When he
asked, in amazement, "Why?" I told him, "Harley-Davidson is
everywhere, but there were only 450 Amazonas Motorcycles made." He went on
to say that he had sold his Amazonas three months before and went to a Yamaha
V-Max, but deeply regretted letting the Amazonas go, far deeper than he thought
he would.

The motorcycle is big, like an old John
Deere tractor. Learning to ride it takes more than just putting in the key and
turning it on. I got to be pretty good with the 1986 model I used. I was deadly
at hitting snakes in the road with it, could keep from scraping the side stand
and even did a little lane splitting, but not at speed. The brakes teach you to
plan well in advance, but then again I had just stepped off a 1947 Indian Chief
from riding around in America, and it's(sic) brakes were a prayer. After
several days I felt comfortable with the Brazilian Behemoth, and gradually
learned to love it. This was a motorcycle which liked to be petted, even though
it was huge and some say ugly. If you caressed it just right it would purr, all
800 pounds of it. Learning to ride it reminded me of what a Harley friend once
said about his rather large wife, "She's a big girl and not very pretty
but she treats me like a King, and I treat her like a Queen."

Once import restrictions were relaxed and
modern motorcycles became available in the 1990s the Amazonas faded into
obscurity. It is remembered by owners and half-mad enthusiasts - and the odd
old-timer who remembers hearing about that weird motorcycle from South America
with a flat four out of a Volkswagen. And no list of the world’s strangest,
ugliest, most-awful bikes is ever complete without a nod towards the mighty
1600. The Amazonas was the product of ingenuity and desperate demand in a
restricted market, reminiscent of the industry maintaining pre-embargo American
cars in Cuba. It was noble and admirable, but certainly not conducive to the
production of a modern and desirable motorcycle.

Anonymous... You thought a VW powered Amazonas was a heavy monster wait till you try on a porsche powered one... think adding a 3 gallon dry sump oil tank plus a much heavier six banger boxer. I would estimate the weight to be in excess of 1100 pounds. The sound and fury would be intimidating tho :D

I saw my first Amazonia at 75th Sturgis USA in 2015. The guy arrived from Brazil on this old rat ride. He had it half apart in the hotel parking lot and was fixing it with a pocket knife. He was very cool and having a time of his life. That is what it is all about. Ride on Bro.

When I was just a 12 year old kid in Brazil, I had my first and only sight of the Amazonas. It's an image that stucks with you all your life, so vividly, so majestous, so grandiose. I never forget that day, it was parked right in the center lane as it's policeman rider was directing traffic. Everyone almost came to a full stop to enjoy in admiration, the Amazonas. Look it's an Amazonas! I was feeling nostalgic today and just came across this article. Good job!